


got no aces up my sleeve

by Jocondite (jocondite)



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-20
Updated: 2008-03-20
Packaged: 2017-10-21 09:40:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/223777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jocondite/pseuds/Jocondite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Seriously," Jon says, and he hasn't planned what he's actually going to say, "a guy who's just gotten a lap dance should not look that miserable."</p><p>(Set during Ryan's visit to that strip club before Panic got signed, around the time Jon had gone back to college after the break-up of 504plan)</p>
            </blockquote>





	got no aces up my sleeve

It's Tom's idea. Tom calls him up one week, says "Dude, I have been thinking. I have been thinking brilliant, brilliant thoughts."

"Yeah?" Jon asks, half-interested, half-squinting at the write-up he has to do for his morning class tomorrow. His phone is stuck between his ear and his shoulder, head tilted hard to the left. "I guess that's worth a special bulletin."

"Fuck you," Tom says, but it's practically a formality; no real invective, like he's in too much of a hurry to bother. "No, dude, seriously, I've been _thinking."_

"Mmhmm?"

Jon's listening, he is, but he also has a storyboard due Tuesday at ten, and he's already behind. He's not really so into scripted film so much – it's not that he doesn't enjoy it, but documentary is _rawer_ somehow, and he really loves it in a way that he doesn't enjoy scripting. If you're working with someone's script, sometimes it can come alive, but sometimes it's just dead; and as for writing his own, yeah. Not so much. His storyboards suck, too, because he can make notes on filters and angles, but his impossibly awesome stick figures aren't too popular with the professor for some reason.

Then again, the professor is kind of an asshole. The sort of asshole who thinks all mainstream American cinema _automatically_ fails, which, yeah, but Jon's just not on board with that sort of across-the-board slamming shit.

" – so, you on board?" Tom asks in his ear. The phone's slipped a little, and his voice is tinny and distant, faintly querulous. "Jonny? Jon, you on board?"

"Yeah," he agrees affably, and draws a stick figure holding up his professor at crossbow point. "Totally."

"I knew you would be. Jonny Walker, you never let me down."

"I never do," Jon concurs. "What am I on board for?"

"Dude." Tom sighs impatiently. "You're such a space case, fuck. Are you smoking up?"

Jon adds a stick-Jedi with a badass stick-lightsaber. "Not right now, I just wasn't listening."

"I lied," Tom says, darkly. "You let me down all the fucking time, Walker. But, seriously. We're not using the van, but Mikey Russell won't let me sell it yet because it represents, like, all our stillborn dreams and shit." He exhales, and Jon can see him, suddenly; sitting crooked in a chair, maybe, taking slow drags on his cigarette, shaking his head. "It's ironic, but I think he's got problems letting go, you know?"

"Yeah," Jon says, because. Yeah, he does know. "So this is about the van?" Sometimes Tom takes a while to get to the point. "Are you gonna sell it? I'm cool with that. I'm definitely cool with getting my share back, you're not going to hear any complaints from me."

"No," Tom says. "Well, yeah, but I'm waiting for him to sign off on it first. I should probably, I don't know, talk to him." There's a rough airy noise that could be a sigh but is more likely to be a heavy exhale of smoke. "No, what I'm talking about is _using_ the van, instead of just leaving it to rust in Nick's mom's backyard. What I'm talking about, Jonny, is a roadtrip."

"Yeah?" Jon's suddenly interested.

" _Roadtrip,_ " Tom repeats. "A roadtrip to Vegas, my friend. I knew you'd wanna get in on that."

"What the hell would we do in Vegas?"

"I don't know, man. Think about it. I hear they have these crazy things called casinos there, slot machines in the fucking 7-11s. Bars. Casinos. _Houses of ill repute_. Why do I have to be the thinking man in this friendship?"

"Age limits," Jon counters. "ID checks. _Big mean surly bouncers_."

"Fake IDs," Tom says, smug. "Really fucking good ones. I got contacts, we've got the ride, we've got the papers, I am the thinking man. Next weekend, dude. Yeah?"

-

Jon doesn't expect Tom's contacts to be any good. It's kind of expected that they won't be. He has Tom's back, anytime, but his grand plans are often theoretically brilliant but fail in execution. Sometimes extremely messily.

"Huh," he says, squinting. "That's. That's actually –"

"I know, right?" Tom asks, and he looks so fucking pleased with himself that Jon's tempted to start talking shit about ink smears and photo quality and font type, just to take that look away. But the I.D. says _Jonathan Jacob Walker_ , date of birth _19-09-1983_ , and Jon's so impressed despite himself that he can't. It's totally worth the hundred bucks.

They might not even get thrown out of gambling hells by the scruffs of their necks by the ungentle hands of beefy and unamused bouncers.

"Huh," he says again, and Tom smirks.

"I _know._ "

"Tom, you are the man," one of the other members of the Great Vegas Expedition says in awed tones, some friend of Tom's that Jon's pretty sure he spent a couple of hours with at a party, talking about – fuck, he doesn't even know.

It takes him a little while to work out whether or not anything embarrassing happened, any scrambling hookups in bathrooms or after gigs. There are some things that you do when you're not at all sober that you don't need other guys, your friends, knowing about, but he's pretty sure that he wouldn't have done anything with someone Tom knows well enough to ask on an Expedition, no matter how wasted he was.

"- totally the _man._ "

"Yeah," Tom says, and cocks his head at Jon, all _you hear that._ "I am the _man._ "

"You're the man," Jon agrees, and slips the I.D. into his wallet.

-

He doesn't know the other guy Tom's invited along, but they both seem pretty nice. It takes him a couple hours in the back of the van, playing his ancient Gameboy ("What the fuck is that?" "Don't harsh it, it's totally vintage, it's practically an art piece, dude"), and trying to annoy Tom into swerving across the median strip, to figure out that while he knows Guy One, who he's ninety per cent certain he's never hooked up with, it was never at a gig. Guy Two is a complete unknown. Neither of these guys were ever part of the Chicago scene, not their circles, not their music.

"What does this say?" Guy Two asks, squinting at something written with marker on the side of the wall. "Smexy Smex?"

"Sexy Smecks," Jon corrects, eyes flicking to the back of Tom's head, smooth and dark blond and imperturbable in the driver's seat. "It's, it's a thing. Private joke," and he kind of wishes Nick was here to laugh, to turn a dull brick red, to remember.

He wonders why he didn't notice earlier that Tom wasn't hanging out with people from Before so much anymore, wonders if it was deliberate. And if so, why he was invited along on this particular jaunt. He's been busy with college lately, but –

"Four hours to Vegas," Guy One says, squinting at a road sign along the highway, and then at the dim screen of his phone.

"Can I get a round of cheers?" Tom asks, turning up the volume of the stereo. "Vegas, baby!"

It's a stronger echo, a half-serious roar - _Vegas! Vegas, baby!_ \- and it's loud and raucous and familiar; it's so fucking _normal_ , being back in this van with loud voices in his ears and the stereo blasting, the faint grinding slick of tires against asphalt.

-

They don't get a motel room in Vegas – they have the van to crash in, if they can find somewhere decent to park it; they have public restrooms; they have _way better_ uses for their cash than motel hires.

These _way better_ uses involve, but are not limited to:

\- bars  
\- clubs  
\- casinos  
\- combinations of all of the above  
\- _strip_ clubs

Their IDs hold up to cursory and even prolonged scrutiny, so they cover their first three options pretty well on the first night – if by _pretty well,_ you mean 'Guy Two is forbidden entry to the van until he's stopped puking, because no one wants to sleep in that', which Jon really doesn't. He might be getting old. Nineteen, and he's more worried about vomit in his hair than cutting loose and having a good time.

The second night, he stops worrying about vomit in his hair, and the third night (the last night) they cover the final option.

"Way more fun than blackjack," Tom says, as if that settles it, and doesn't even get too pissed off when Guy One mutters under his breath that _sure, blackjack's no fun if you lose every single round –_

-

Jon skims a glance around the room – rowdy group of frat boys, _check_ ; a few clusters of guys that look like they've come in together, after work or something; guys sitting by themselves, sipping drinks and ignoring everything except the show, unblinking as lizards. It's not particularly big. Tom's run of bad bad luck at blackjack means that they're economizing on the strip joints, and Guy Two found this little place down a side street, too close to the Strip to entirely lose its reflected glow, and too far away to be anything but a little second-rate.

Jon almost wishes he could bring a camera in; he can imagine a series of photos, black and whites interspersed with brilliant colored prints; seedy beauty and the harsh eye of the lens, humanity on display, the gleam of skin, the way the stage is scuffed and the patrons sweat.

It takes him maybe five minutes to notice the kid in the back. Granted, he stopped watching the patrons and turned his attention to the show maybe thirty seconds after they got here, but he still feels like he should have noticed the kid on his first sweep of the room. He's sitting all by himself at a corner table, slim shoulders drawn in, and he looks miserable. _Underage_ and miserable, and Jon's surprised by how much he wants to loan him his jacket and hustle him out of the strip joint, home to his mom.

He's young and wild and free; he's in _Vegas_ on a road trip with his friends; he should not be feeling protective urges over kids in strip joints.

"Look at her," Tom breathes quietly in his ear, pointing at a girl (long dark hair, a sharp little waist, hips moving slowsweet), and Jon stops looking at the boy in the corner. She's not really his type when it comes to girls, but she's pretty, despite all the makeup and the surreal ochre of her tanned tanned skin.

"Yeah," he agrees, voice a little thick, and tells himself that that has nothing to do with Tom next to him, or the shine in Tom's eyes and the way something in his face goes soft and sleepy when he's watching the girls, something Jon carefully doesn't notice (tries not to), ever.

"Yeah," Tom echoes, nodding.

The girl sees them staring, and walks along the little stage until she's right near their table, dancing pointedly close.

"Fuck," Tom says, rough and sharp and Jon _knows_ that tone of voice (but not like that, never like that). "I – wow, fuck," and suddenly he does sound nineteen.

The girl's long dark hair brushes against the stage when she bends backwards, and when she asks Tom if he wants a lapdance, he cuts his eyes at Jon.

Jon doesn't follow.

He could really care less about talking to Guys One and Two, though, so he gets another shot of JD and stares half-heartedly at some of the pretty girls on display. It's not that he doesn't like them, that they don't get him hard, because he does, and they do. It's just.

There's a heavy puddling ring of liquid left on the countertop by his glass, dark flickering with gold under the lights. He draws his index finger through it, shattering the circle, until the liquid merges and merges and merges into one amorphous splatter of gilt and onyx. A flick of his finger sends a thousand droplets all over the bench, shining dull and vaguely round-edged, like sea-worn glass.

He's bored. He's really _fucking_ bored, which is why he's messing around with that; which is why he happens to be looking over, happens to see one of the girls picking up the miserable kid, whispering in his ear; sees the way the line of the kid's throat moves as he swallows, and his hands twitch into loose fists, and then relax again.

The kid nods, and follows her out, her thin tan fingers dark around his pale wrist.

When the backroom door closes behind them, Jon pushes back his stool. He's not sure why, but he takes a last swig of his drink and follows.

Tom's there, off course, laughing and handing his girl a couple of bills; when he sees Jon, there's a tiny fractured second of surprise, a delayed second of perception, like slow cracking lines snaking across ice.

Jon smiles easily at him. He's not looking around the room at the kid, no; he's waiting for Tom to get up and saunter over to him, half-smiling. When he does, Jon just knocks his shoulder against his, raises his eyebrows, and doesn't say anything.

Tom raises his eyebrows back, and that's what Jon's looking at, the flush on his cheeks and the smug curl of his mouth, taking notes for the way he's going to tease the shit out of him later. He's not looking past Tom's shoulder; he's carefully unaware of the kid sitting on one of the chairs behind him, the girl grinding all over his lap, her golden skin slick with sweat.

"Dude," Jon says, and pulls out his phone and checks the time on the screen exaggeratedly, "dude, your turnaround time's not so hot. You sure you managed to fit in your money's worth?"

Tom punches his shoulder. "Shut the fuck up, Jon Walker. Why don't _you_ get a lapdance?" he asks, looking appreciatively at one of the other girls putting on a show for another guy, and beyond his shoulder the kid bites his lip, eyes shut.

Tom's head turns as one girl walks past them and back through the doorway, her slim hips swinging. Her skin shines under the bright lighting, and it's almost hypnotic, watching her walk.

"Nah," Jon says finally. He's more than half-hard, has been half-hard for a while, but – Nah.

Tom nudges him. "You know you want to, dude. What's up with you?"

"I'm just worried I won't beat your time, you see," Jon says very seriously, and dodges before Tom can punch his shoulder again. "I can't let you live with the shame and self-reproach, Tommy."

"You're fucked up," Tom tells him. "Also, only in your dreams do you outlast me."

"Every night," Jon agrees, and this time he lets the punch land, and follows Tom out through the door when he finally shrugs in defeat.

-

It doesn't take that much longer for the kid to come back out, either; not that Jon's keeping half an eye on the door, or anything.

"Yeah," he says, when Tom and Guy Two demand his opinion on something, even though he's not really listening.

The kid's not grinning when he comes out, and Jon can't find any trace of the sheepish, pleased expression most guys tend to wear when they've just had a lapdance they might have enjoyed a little too much. He just looks miserable again when he sits back down, his cheek resting on his fist as he stares at his knees. He takes a morose sip of his drink, which Jon would be willing to bet cold hard cash was non-alcoholic, unless the kid's ID is an even better fake than his.

"No, but really," Guy One says, frowning. "How can you think that, dude? Back me up here, that's not even - that's total bullshit."

Jon looks at him blankly, at Tom and the other guy, these two people who are Tom's new friends and whose names he can't keep straight half the time, and realizes that he has no idea what the fuck they're talking about, but that he doesn't much care, either.

"Whatever," he says, pushing back his glass. "I'm not qualified to back anyone up, okay? I'm just gonna go to the restroom, I'll be back."

It's not a lie, it's just that on the way there he has to pass the kid's table, that's all. The kid doesn't look up as he goes by, so he ends up going to the bathroom anyway. He takes a piss and splashes some cold water on his face, and feels a little more sober.

He's just – he's over this. He's going to leave, he's going to go home and sleep.

It takes him a few seconds after making this resolution to remember that 'home' is the back of a van and a sleeping bag, and it takes him longer to remember where the fuck they parked.

-

That's the plan.

That's the plan but when he opens the bathroom door, he can see the slump of the kid's shoulders, and it hits him again, the urge to hustle the guy out of the bar and send him home to his mom or - _something._

He slows down when he passes the kid's table this time, then stops.

"Seriously," Jon says, and he hasn't planned what he's actually going to say, "a guy who's just gotten a lap dance should not look that miserable."

The guy turns his head to look at him, all huge startled dark eyes.

"Mind your own fucking business," he says sharply. His voice is deeper and harsher with anger than Jon expected it to be, and he ups his estimate of the kid's age a little bit.

"Okay, okay," he says, holding his hands up, "you just, you just looked a little sad, kid, and I mean, wasn't that something you should have enjoyed?"

"I'm not a kid," the kid says flatly, glaring.

 _That could have gone better_ , Jon acknowledges, fumbling around for a way to retrieve the conversation. "I didn't mean," he says. "I just meant – do you come here often?"

That's what he manages to come up with, and it takes him a half-second to realize what he's just said. He makes an exaggeratedly shocked, hopefully-apologetic face at the kid, who looks as taken aback as he feels. This bar is probably full of undercover cops, and they are going to bust his ass for hitting on this kid, and by the time he proves that he's not that old, really, he's going to need bail and it's not like the other guys'll have the cash to pony up, he's going to have to call his _parents_ , from _jail_ -

"I didn't mean it like that," he protests, as the kid stares at him, mouth set in what Jon can only interpret as an expression of incredible affront. "It came out sounding like a line, but I didn't mean it like that, I didn't mean it like that _at all_ , and – and I am way too drunk for this conversation, but it wasn't a line," he concludes lamely. "Even though it, you know, it really sounded like one."

"It really did," the guy says, and his voice is so devoid of inflection that Jon can't read anything into it. "Not just a line, but _the_ line. Does that ever work for you?"

"Never," Jon admits. Then adds, panicked again, "But that wasn't meant as a come-on, I swear -"

"I believe you," the kid says, still solemn of face and of voice, but then his mouth twitches and Jon realizes that he's laughing at him, has probably been laughing at him for a while.

"Fuck," he says, rubbing a hand through his hair, half-abashed, but he can't help grinning. The kid smiles back – only slightly, but enough – and Jon repeats, with emphasis, "I'm _totally_ too drunk for this."

The kid shrugs, and pushes his own glass across the table in Jon's direction. "Or not enough."

Jon takes the proffered glass as an invitation to sit down, and does. "This can't actually be alcoholic, though. I mean, you have to be kidding, there's no way they actually serve you the real deal."

The kid shrugs again.

"No _way_ ," Jon says finally, turning the half-empty glass around a little in his hands, dark liquid lapping against the glass. "You look like you're like ten years old, there's just no way."

"Ten?" the kid says, and his voice is so fucking misleading, Jon has no idea if he's incredibly offended or not. " _Ten?"_

"Well, fifteen, sixteen, maybe," Jon says, generous. "But you don't fool me."

"No," the kid agrees, and his mouth does that faint quivery thing again. "You've got mad observation skills."

"Damn straight," Jon says, then takes a swallow from the glass. He's not surprised at the sweet metallic tang of flat soda, but he is a little at the faint bright burn of rum that the soda doesn't entirely mask, warm against the back of his throat.

The kid's just watching him, solemn and unhappy again, and he only smiles sourly when Jon quirks his eyebrows at him in admiring acknowledgement.

It's his set, sad little face – so out of place in a fucking strip joint, Jesus – that reminds Jon why he spoke to the guy in the first place, and that it had nothing to do with stealing his drinks or letting him laugh at him.

"You shouldn't be here," he says earnestly, blinking. "Dude, you're way too young. You should be at home with your mom or something." He makes wavy motions with his hands that are supposed to convey this with the eloquence he's not really verbally capable of right now.

"Yeah, no," the kid says, and takes the glass back and takes a slug.

"Yeah… _yeah_ ," Jon counters, and can't help finding that funny. He's supposed to be taking a firm brotherly line, or something, so he muffles down the laughter - although the kid's quick dark eyes don't miss a thing - and says "No, but really. Where do you live, kid? Your mom's probably worried about you."

"I can promise you she's not."

"Kid," Jon starts again.

" _Ryan_ ," the kid – Ryan – corrects. "I'm not a kid." He shifts around in his seat, squirming, and it takes Jon a second to figure out that he's trying to work something out of the pocket of his jeans. It's apparently quite a strenuous feat, with jeans as tight as his.

"There," he says, handing Jon two driver's licenses. "The one on top's the fake that got me into here, and the one on the bottom's the real one."

They both say _George Ryan Ross_ ; the first claims that he was born in 1983, and the second claims a birthdate of 1986.

"Nice," Jon says, holding the fake up to the light a little. "Not as sweet as mine, but nice."

The kid blinks once, twice. "You're using a fake, too, and you were playing big brother with me? How old are you?"

"Nineteen," Jon admits. "Just. And you're –"

"Eighteen. Just."

"How do I know that that one's not a fake, too?" Jon asks. He figures that it's a fair question, but Ryan wrinkles his nose and gives the eighty-six license a distinctly jaundiced look.

"Do you think I'd carry that photo around if it wasn't real?"

"Point," Jon has to concede, because the purported real deal features Ryan in some sort of school blazer and striped tie, his chin red with spots, and he looks even younger than he does in person. "Definite point."

"So you're only a year older than me. Not even that."

"You're not as young as I thought," Jon concedes.

"I'm legal," Ryan says, taking back the driver's licenses and pocketing them once more. "Not for drinking, but, you know. For other stuff." The last sentence fragment is accompanied by a tilt of his head that makes his bangs fall into his eyes.

"Other stuff," Jon says blankly. It takes him a second to parse it; he _gets_ it right away, but it takes him longer to realize that not only is that a line, it's being used on him, it's being used on him by this _kid_ , only he's not a kid, but, but, _fuck_. "Are you trying to pick me up?" he asks finally.

Clarification is always good, and also, he's playing for time.

"Well, yeah, I'm trying," Ryan says, rolling his eyes, bored monotone edged with exasperation. "But you're making it pretty hard." He picks up the glass and sips at the last of the rum and coke.

Jon tries really, really hard not notice the way the tilt of his head bares his neck a little, tries not to watch the line of his throat move as he swallows.

"Uh."

"Well?" Ryan asks, setting down the cup, and the slanted set of his chin is impatient, peremptory; but his voice is just a little uncertain, just a little young, and more than ever Jon thinks _he shouldn't be here_ , eighteen or not.

 _Nineteen eighty-six_ , Jon repeats to himself, _eighty-six, eighty-six, eighty-six._

"Yeah," he says. "I shouldn't, but – yeah."

-

Ryan doesn't say anything after that, just smiles tightly at him and gets up, edging around the table and making his way towards the exit. Jon follows him.

They don't touch until they get outside.

As he walked out, passing by the bar, Jon did think about stopping to find Tom or even one of the Guys and telling them that he's going and that he'll be back – later. Whenever. He didn't feel like explaining, though – he never feels like explaining – and if he's honest, he didn't want to make Ryan wait for him, he didn’t want to let Ryan change his mind.

He tries to put that thought firmly out of his mind when the cool night air hits him, though. The kid might be legal but he's definitely miserable tonight, and Jon's not that guy, even though Ryan's waiting for him outside the door, hands shoved into his pockets.

"Ryan," he starts – and he's going to say something like _hey, you know it's late, you should get home,_ something just like that. The kid just flicks an irritated look at the neon lighting of the club sign, says "Not _here,_ " and sets off down the street, his shoulders curled in and his hands still in his pockets.

Jon honestly has no idea how he managed to cram them in there, or why his fingers aren't turning black from suppressed circulation.

Ryan takes a left at the end of the block, then another, then a right, and Jon has to hasten his stride a little from his usual walking pace just to keep up with him. He doesn’t stop for another block, and then the street they're walking down dwindles down into a blind alley.

"Jesus," Jon says nervously. "You going to club me over the head and grab my wallet now? Is this a hit?"

"Yes," Ryan says dryly, "yeah, that's exactly what I'm planning on doing."

Jon can't make out his features clearly in the moonless black of the alleyway, but now would be a really, really good time for _hey, you know it's late, you should get home._

He doesn’t say anything and Ryan takes a step forward, then another, and suddenly Jon can hear the faint stifled sound of him breathing, feel the hotcold of his breath on his own face.

"Hey," he says. He's going to follow it up with it's late, probably, but Ryan takes that as an invitation and before Jon can get it out, Ryan pushes forward the last little bit and kisses him, hard and sudden and close-mouthed, Jon's own mouth open in surprise. It's off-centre and awkward, the angle all wrong.

Ryan pulls back and makes a frustrated noise, half moan, and kisses him again, mouth open this time, and it's just as hard and desperate and nearly as crooked, but it's slicker and when Jon touches his shoulder, he slows down a little.

He finds himself steadying Ryan's jaw and saying "Hey," again, calmingly. "Take it easy."

"I don't _want_ to," Ryan mutters, and this time's there's just a hint of teeth, a more careful and controlled flicker of tongue, and fuck it, that's good enough for Jon. They stumble a few feet back across the alley until Ryan's shoulders hit the cinderblock wall with a soft, surprised _oomph._

"Mmmph," Ryan says in counterpoint. Jon makes a noise that's a guilty, interrogative _fuck, did you hit that wall too hard,_ nuzzling along his jaw as he's sliding his hands down Ryan's sides under the jacket he's wearing, Ryan's thin t-shirt bloodwarm with body heat and stretched tight across his ribcage.

His hands find Ryan's hips, seize and settle; Ryan shudders and jerks forward, and for the first time Jon can feel him hard against his stomach. He figures that that means _I'm fine, get to the good part_ and okay, he can do that.

It's a slow steady rocking together of hips and cocks and mouths, Jon's knee nudging between Ryan's thighs, until Ryan jerks his head away and says "Okay, now," breathless.

"Now what?" Jon asks. "We don't even have a _room_ ," he adds, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth, "we've been crashing in the van, I don't even know-"

Ryan kisses him again, and he lets Ryan force his head back, lets him fist his fingers in his hair and pull just a little.

"Okay," Jon says finally, breathing hard and uneven, "okay. Have you done this before?"

"Yeah," Ryan says, and in the dim Jon can't make out the look on his face, only the massed shadow of his silhouette against lesser darkness. His fingers are fumbling at Jon's belt buckle, and Jon's not sure what Ryan intends to do, exactly - until he starts to sink down a little on his heels and. Well.

Jon's just a guy, at the end of the day. There's no reason in the world why Jon should _stop_ someone hot and eager to suck him off, and a hundred reasons why he should let him. His dick certainly agrees with that reasoning. His dick doesn't have any qualms; but then, his dick didn't see the kid's face back in the club, the misery and hurt written all over.

"Hey," he says, stopping Ryan's fingers and tugging him up, "we're not going to play it like that, okay? I'm gonna – look, let me."

His dick hates him. Jon kind of hates himself, too, but Ryan straightens up with a soft huff of breath. It's helpful that he's already pressed back against the wall; all Jon needs to do is to get his ridiculously tight jeans unbuttoned and pulled down over his hips, which takes some work. Ryan tries to help him, their fumbling fingers overlapping and hindering more than helping; he draws his breath in, ragged and harsh, when Jon gets a hand into his boxers.

Jon strokes Ryan's cock a few times, gets the shape and feel of it, heat and hardness against the thin skin of his palm; then he drops to his knees and nuzzles the crease of Ryan's hip. It's not meant to be teasing, not really, but Ryan groans and his long fingers curl through Jon's hair.

" _Please_ ," he says, a hoarse little rasp of sound, and. Okay.

Jon didn't expect to end up in a grimy dead-end alley in Las Vegas, grit cutting into his knees where the denim's worn thin, with a thin guy pinned up against a wall and making these awesome little stifled noises, like he's making them through set teeth and a bitten lip. It's still so dark that Jon can't see whether he is or not, but hearing the reaction when he does _that_ with his tongue, _that_ with his hands – it almost makes up for the gravel sting of his knees and the ache in his jaw, the way Ryan goes a little fast and Jon has to pull back, choking, eyes watering.

It's not like it's a hardship, or anything; Jon manages to get his flies open one-handed and grind into his own fist until he comes, not long after Ryan does. Usually he'd wait until the kid was done and make him suck him off in turn, or at least jerk him off, but with this guy – well.

He comes quick and sharp and silent, still rubbing his sleeve over his swollen mouth, and then there's an eternity of getting his jeans zipped up, wiping his hand off on the wall and then against his jeans, an eternity of getting back up to his feet. It takes him a while to realize that Ryan has his head dropped down and that he's making these funny, jagged little noises, half breath and half shuddering silence.

It takes a second or two for Jon to realize, and once he does something twists in his stomach, something one part sickness and five parts sheer and purest panic, and his own breathing stutters. "Dude, are you – are you crying?"

"No," Ryan says, stiffening, and he sounds angry and defensive and Jon feels kind of exactly like shit.

"Shit," he says, "shit, _shit_ – have you done that before? With a guy," he adds, but he's also wondering, _ever_ , and jesus, he did ask and the kid was so _sure_ of himself, but -

" _Yes_ ," Ryan says tersely, and there's a little pause as the jagged breathing stifles and softens as he tries to get it under control. "Yeah, before – fuck. It's not that. It's just - stuff." He draws in a deep breath that only hitches a little, and when he speaks again it's in a flat little monotone that sounds like he's trying to murder all emotion in his voice, throttle it down to robotic evenness. "I – my girlfriend. She – fuck. I don't know. I just wanted - I don't normally drink," he adds. "It was just –"

"Hey, no, I get it," Jon says soothingly, uncomfortable, although he's not quite sure what _it_ is.

He must have said the wrong thing, because Ryan says "I'm _not_ crying," curt and cross, despite the fact that he's wiping the back of his hand over his eyes angrily. "I'm not."

"Okay," Jon agrees. "You're not."

There's a last, final hitched breath. "I don't even know your fucking name."

"Jon," Jon says. "Jonathan." That sounds weak and kind of inadequate, so he adds "Jonathan Jacob Walker. Do you live near here? I can give you a lift home – or, no, I probably shouldn't, I've had a couple, but I can _walk_ you home. If, you know, you want."

"I have my own car."

That sounds like a dismissal and Jon shoves his hands into his pockets. He's about to say something lame and leave when Ryan adds "Anyway, I don't want to go home. I just - I don't want to."

Jon tries, because hey, teenagers have fallings-out with their parents all the time – "You sure?"

" _Yes._ "

Jon holds his hands up, smiling peaceably, even though Ryan can't see it. "Okay, we won't take you home." He pauses, and maybe it's a bad idea, but it'd be a worse one to leave the kid alone in the dark, or back in another bar. "Do you have somewhere to go? Do you want me want me to stay with you?"

"I'm fine," Ryan says, clipped. "Anyway, you've got stuff to do."

Jon doesn't even have to think about it; about the small crampedness of the van, short on space and long on memories, about Tom, about the guys he doesn't know and doesn't care to and about the ones that are missing. "I really don't," he says. "And anyway – look, I really don't."

-

"Where'd you want to go?" Jon asks as they're walking along up the street, hands in their pockets, shoulders brushing only occasionally. Three times every block there's the sudden amber-shot flare of a streetlight, before they're back in darkness again. Jon can almost count it out in strides, one two three four five six _ten_ , can see Ryan's face, can't, can't, can't, _can_. "Is there an all-hours diner or something around?"  
.  
Ryan shrugs ( _can't_ ). "Dunno."

"We could find one," Jon suggests. "If we drove around or something. I could find the van. I shouldn't take it, though, the others could need it. Stealing is bad," he tells Ryan wisely, nodding his head. "Even though… no, it'd still be wrong. Even in times of great need. Probably."

It's lame like a one-legged duck, but in the brief brightness of a streetlamp he can see Ryan ducking to hide a half-smile, which is good, even if he's laughing _at_ him.

"Fuck it, we'll take my car," Ryan offers another half-block up, with a sliding glance sideways. "I'm parked in a lot a couple of streets away. Should be five minutes walk."

He guesses that's Ryan's way of saying that he trusts him not to be a secret mass-murderer or a lycanthrope or weirdly hypersensitive to sunlight and garlic and spiky bits of wood.

"Sounds like a plan," Jon says easily, and Ryan nods again.

-

Jon maybe should be the worried one, being driven out of the Strip by a strange guy he's just sucked off in an alley, but somehow he's really not. He's still two-thirds drunk, which might have something to do with it, but it probably has more to do with Ryan himself.

It's hard to seriously picture him as a threat to anyone, with his long frangible fingers curled around the steering wheel, shifting to the clutch, and his knobbly wrists bared by the cuffs of his jacket riding up, oddly vulnerable-looking.

Out through the windshield the sky's turning a faint soft red along the horizon, shading into dawn. When the car started there was a cd in the player, but the opening bars of _Take This To Your Grave_ barely had time to play before Ryan clicked his tongue and ejected it, switching to the college radio station.

Jon thought about telling him that he knows the band, thinks about it; but at the end of the day he doesn't want to talk about Chicago or music, doesn't want to be the first to break the heavy, not-quite-uncomfortable silence, thick and warm as smoke in the front seat.

In the end it's Ryan that says something, just as they come up to a Dunkin' Donuts.

"I'm going to turn in here," he says without looking at him, switching on the indicator. "I could really fucking use a cup of coffee."

It breaks the spell, the calm, and Jon says "Yeah, me too. I wouldn't say no to anything that'd fix the taste in my mouth right about now."

Ryan turns a horrible unflattering pinkish-red as he takes the left, ducking his head in embarrassment. "Uh. Sorry."

"No, dude, chill," Jon says quickly. "Ignore me, I'm just being an asshole. Seriously. Too much bourbon." He pats Ryan's shoulder reassuringly.

They get extra-large coffees and a bag of mixed donuts, and Jon manages to cover it with the wad of cash he fishes out of his back pocket.

"You didn't have to pay," Ryan says darkly, looking at him under his bangs.

"I figure you have to pay for gas," Jon says, shrugging. "Where are we going?"

"Not much further. There's a lake – you wouldn't think it, in the desert, right? About forty minutes from town."

"Nice," Jon says peaceably, and takes a sip of coffee, smiling out the window as the warmth moves from his gullet to his stomach.

Nothing else is said until they get there, the sky now a wash of red-gold and saffron, the sun a growing slice of promised brightness along the skyline and not yet quite in sight.

-

They're sitting on the hood of Ryan's car, parked beside the lake, cardboard cups of coffee slowly cooling, dwindling. Jon's on the edge of sleep, helped along by alcohol and orgasm and the slowly-warming early morning; the coffee and the sugar are the only things really keeping him from curling up on his side and falling asleep on the hood of Ryan's car like a cat.

It's like when they were driving. It's not uncomfortable, exactly, but Jon doesn't want to be the one to break the silence first, not if Ryan prefers it. Jon figures he does, since the lake is lovely at this hour, reflecting back the early sky and Ryan's not looking at it.

Jon kind of expected that the lake was the point, but Ryan's staring at the road instead. All Jon can see is his profile, all bangs and nose and chin, but he keeps flicking the occasional glance in his direction anyway.

He really wishes he kept a pack of cigarettes on him. He doesn't buy cigarettes, as a rule (unless he really, really needs to get on Tom's good side); just steals one off whoever he's with if they're lighting up, and he's in the mood. He wishes he had one of the fucking things right now, just for something to do with his hands, something to _do,_ full stop. His camera wouldn't go amiss, either.

"You're bored," Ryan says suddenly. "I guess this is kind of lame."

"Nah," Jon reassures him, even though half a second ago he was thinking roughly the same thing. "This is nice. Peaceful." Ryan looks dubious, so he adds "Plus, there are donuts. It's kind of hard for anything to suck completely when there are donuts."

"Yeah," Ryan says. He sounds a little surprised, like he'd forgotten, and Jon offers him the bag companionably.

"Are you looking out for anything in particular?" he asks, and Ryan shrugs, staring down into the paper bag like the choice between frosted or filled or frosted _and_ filled is impossibly difficult.

"No, I just – I just like to watch the cars, I guess. I don't know why."

'"They're shiny," Jon suggests, just to make Ryan turn his head and grin at him a little.

"That one's a pretty sweet ride, anyway," he agrees, squinting into the pale early light as a silver Mercedes passes them, gets swept out of sight around the bend by the relentless pulse of traffic.

"Bet the driver won a couple millions at the blackjack table," Jon offers. "He went and cashed it in on the car he'd always wanted straight away, first thing he bought."

Ryan looks at him, the corner of his mouth curling up, bemused and assessing and something else Jon can't make out. "And now he's, what, having to flee Vegas at dawn because the crooked casino owners aren't willing to let him get away with the cash?"

"They've set the heavies on his trail," Jon agrees affably. "And that SUV there's being driven by a soccer mom that's lost her kids' college fund playing the pokies, and now she's going to California."

"To pan for gold in the Rockies," Ryan says, half laughing. He rummages in the bag for another donut, and sinks a smile-shaped bite into frosting and sprinkles.

Jon tips back his cup and drains the last of his lukewarm coffee as another couple of cars go by, driving into the sunrise.

"That one's–" a battered blue Ford – "that one's driving to California to smuggle crack over the Mexican border."

"Uh, isn't that supposed to go the other way?" Ryan asks, and Jon waves the empty coffee cup expansively and says "Well, yeah, _technically._ That could just be what everyone thinks they know. It could be a cunning and devious double-blind."

"Or," Ryan suggests, wide-eyed, "you could be not really sober and kind of confused," and Jon nods, grinning, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

"That could be it. Anything's possible."

"That car there's going to Utah," Ryan says. "The driver's had a sudden religious conversion. He found God in the grease stain on the back of a napkin the day after Mormon missionaries gave him their talk, and now he's full of holy fire."

"Nice," Jon says, as the scruffy Jeep with the _I brake for the Lord_ sticker proud on its bumper rounds the curve and vanishes. A Honda comes sailing past from the other direction, heading to Vegas. "That one's an out-of-state cheerleader hoping she can make it big as a can-can dancer at Caesar's," he suggests. "In an itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny gold lamé bikini." He hums the last line, even though it doesn’t scan and he trips up, stretching out the syllables and flattening the melody.

"She'll end up on a street corner, then. That's what this place does," Ryan says, his voice suddenly hard. "Maybe it's not the place, it's just…"

"Yeah?" Jon says carefully into the pause. "You mentioned a girlfriend, before."

"I don't want to talk about her. That's not a shut-down, that's just – I really fucking don't want to talk about it."

"Okay," Jon says. He doesn't say anything more, just squints calmly into the sun until Ryan fills the silence again.

"She's an ex, now," Ryan says. "She cheated on me. That's it, that's _all_ ," and then he gives a harsh little half-laugh.

"Pretty big all."

"Yeah."

Jon wordlessly passes him the Dunkin' Donuts bag with the last donut inside, dusted with pink sugar. Ryan takes it, with a wary look at Jon that says _if you sympathize with me, I will kill you_ , and Jon pretends like he hasn't noticed it, the way he pretended that he didn't notice the way Ryan's mouth trembled when he talked about her, before it ironed out into a hard line. You can't be sad or angry and eat donuts at the same time, he figures, and Ryan looks definitely looks a little less miserable with pink sugar around his mouth, jaw working.

"That one's going to Canada to drive dogsleds," Jon tells him, pointing out a yellowish car of indeterminate make, rather than _I'm sorry_ , or _that sucks_.

Ryan almost smiles at that, at least, even though he doesn't reply. He doesn't say anything for a few minutes, until a Greyhound goes past, almost empty. "There's a guy on that bus who's going to New York City to sing on street corners." He sounds wistful.

Jon shifts. "Good luck to him," he says, the corner of his mouth turning down. "Kind of a shitty job. He'd do better to stay home and go to college."

The sky's no longer red at all, not even faintly ruddy, still showing saffron along the east but shading higher into purest pale blue.

"Are you in college?" Ryan asks.

"Yeah," Jon says. "Film, back at Columbia. It's going pretty well. You? Now would not," he adds, frowning, with heaviest and most dour solemnity, "be a good time to tell me that that license was a fake and that you're still in high school."

"No, I'm in college," Ryan assures him, grinning a little. "First semester, though. I'm going to major in Creative Writing. Well, maybe." He looks down again, rubbing at the knob of his wrist. "Don't fucking laugh at me, but I have this band, and I think – I think it could really go somewhere. We have someone kind of important talking about signing us, but I'm not supposed to talk about that yet. It could be – you know, it could _work._ "

"Uh-huh," Jon says, and doesn't tell him that he thought the same thing once.

"Another car," Ryan says, tilting his head in its direction. "And it's going – fuck, I don't know. They could be going anywhere, doing anything. That's why I like watching them. It would be the most awesome feeling, to get in a car, a van, and just _drive_ , as far as you possibly can."

"And sometimes it sucks," Jon says. "You drive and drive and you haven't called your mom for ages and you don't know what's going on with your brothers. You don't sleep enough and you're never comfortable when you do. You wear the same clothes over and over and wash them wherever you can, but you're never clean."

Ryan rolls his eyes, like he doesn't think Jon knows what he's talking about. "You don't get it. You don't have to stay here."

"No," Jon agrees. He's not going to bother arguing the point. "In fact, I have to go - fuck, what's the time?"

He doesn't want to turn his phone on yet; he's trying to conserve the battery. There isn't much left and he's probably going to need it to call Tom or one of the others if he can't find the van, or if they've shifted it.

"Seven oh-five," Ryan says, checking his.

"I've got a little time, then," Jon says. "They weren't planning to hit the road before lunch, but I should probably –"

"Yeah," Ryan says, sliding off the hood onto the grass. "I'll drop you back."

"Thanks," Jon says.

Buckling his seatbelt, shutting the car door; it feels conclusive, somehow, the period at the end of the last line of a book. Ryan puts the key into the ignition, and for a second they just sit there, squinting into the brilliant glare of sunshine on the lake.

Jon thinks, well. It's awkward, now that they're not a couple of strangers in a dark alley, but two guys who've been drinking coffee and watching cars.

He leans over and kisses Ryan anyway, a light brush of his mouth against Ryan's, butterfly-light; nothing fancy, just the brief press of their lips and the faint warmth on his face of Ryan's breathing, the brighter warmth of his mouth. Jon closes his eyes anyway.

"What was that?" Ryan asks when he pulls away, touching his mouth almost hesitantly. Jon shrugs.

"I hope your band goes somewhere," he says instead, surprising himself, "I really do," and he's even more surprised to realize that he means it.

"Thanks," Ryan says, looking puzzled. Then he turns the key in the ignition, and the engine kicks into life.


End file.
